If the slaves in these books were black, would they be republished? If they were Asian, Native American, Latino? But they’re women, and we’re not supposed to raise a stink about these piddling little books that others wiser that we have judged unimportant. We’re supposed to put up and shut up–because we still haven’t had that liberation, and apparently people still think they can tell us what issues are supposed to be important, and what aren’t, and what “unimportant” things we’re legitimizing by daring to point out they are vile.

This is a really, really good point, because black people are at the point where there are no offen-

-sive material being put out that denigrates the whole ra-

ce or anything like that. I mean, we aren’t really portrayed as stereotypical pi-

mps and hustlers and oversexed and whorish and only good for entertainment by the media at large or any-

more, you kn-

ow? Everything is gravy. Everything is positive. None of us grow up looking up to drug dealers or pimps or hustlers.

That’s a sucker’s game. It’s ugly and stupid and, if you’re serious about what you’re talking about, beneath you. It’s like trying to play upon, or even create, guilt and therefore curry favor.

Sorry. Pet peeves, right? We’ve all got issues. We even share some! Mine are important and yours are important, but that doesn’t mean that you get to use mine to bolster yours, because I don’t want to do that to you.

I’m trying not to make this post sound jerky, but I don’t think it’s working. I think it’s maybe the all-seeing starry eyes of Archbishop Don Magic Juan looking down on me.

I’ve got even money that the people signing the checks, and therefore allowing the music to be distributed/published, are white. Def Jam is owned by Universal, whose CEO is Doug Morris, Sony’s head is a white guy…

Most of the gangsta rap companies of the ’90s, and even today, are owned by one of the conglomerates. Interscope, who published Death Row and others, is owned by Universal…

Smart rappers own the masters of their records, but they still need someone to sign their checks. In a way, that’s worse, I think.

White dudes run the world, man. It’s no different in music.

There’s no reason for you to stay out of any argument, dude. All opinions welcome.

Y’know, I’m going to risk looking like a well-meaning-but-ignorant middle class white guy (which, in fact, I may well be) and say something. I think part of the problem with racial stereotyping is the eagerness with which a subset of that ethnic/cultural group consumes and embraces that stereotype. As a grad student in a mostly-undergrad dorm at the University of Houston, I see a LOT of blacks and Latinos. A lot of them are boring middle-class types, but a lot of them also seem to have been taken wholesale from the Offensive Stereotype Style Guide. Not so much fashion as attitude, speech patterns, etc. I’ve seen SO many kids who practically aspire to be the Hustle and Flow guy, working on English Lit and engineering degrees while their lives are dedicated to “bitches and weed” that it kind of melts my outsider mind. Unfair or not, it becomes difficult not to equate the surface aspects of that stereotype with the more unpleasant inner ones–I simply don’t care to know the man who thinks it’s okay to stand in the hall on the phone and yell “They’ll be right over, they gonna grab they (racial epithet beginning with N, plural) and some bitches and then they comin’ over hurr.” (Exact quote) I don’t know how much of it is the white folks who write the checks poisoning the culture with pimps-and-crack-and-money-and-death shit, and how much is people making a conscious decision that that shit is acceptable, worthwhile entertainment–I have to think that with either one of those taken out of the equation, the other half would falter. But in the end, I just know that I want to stay the fuck away from the kid down the hall who yells about “respec'” while wandering around the commons area shirtless.

You could say that the trend of self-disrespect in pop culture started in the ’70s with the rise of blaxploitation films. They featured black actors, but the directors, writers, and producers behind them were often white. From there, we move quickly into music and a pattern that repeats itself up to the modern day.

This stuff was pitched as realistic, ground-breaking, and most of all, cool. “This is what black men are like,” they said. “This is right and cool.” Cause and effect. It took hold because everyone wants to be cool. You could hear “Go shawty, it’s ya birthday” on a non-black playground back when In Da Club was a big single.

Parents can’t really contend with the sensory overload we exist in today. One person saying “No” amongst a sea of people saying “yes” doesn’t mean much of anything any more.

Put another way– most people chase fads, few change them.

So, when you’re conditioned to feel like something is right and good and cool for a couple generations, that sort of thing is going to stick. You can’t just get rid of it by saying “This is bad, and demeaning.” If it was that easy, American would’ve have had slaves for so long.

If you look at any movement, it didn’t get going just on the spur of the moment. There were factors that led up to the change. The Black Panthers grew up out of a community wanting to protect itself from police brutality. The civil rights movement grew out of decades of mistreatment.

This isn’t to suggest that no one is responsible for this– not at all. But, it isn’t quite as simple as “black people embrace the stereotype.”

To link it back to the Gor thing– it isn’t only a bunch of dudes participating in this creepy Gorean thing. There are women consenting to being treated like cattle. To be quite frank, all parties involved should know better, but they’ve chosen to embrace something negative for whatever reason.

4thletter! is proudly powered by WordPress and a customized version of the "Neat!" theme.
All images, logos, and text is copyright its creator/publisher. All posts and comments are copyright their authors.